Author's notes: Twilight Sparkle Punches a Baby · 5:03am Jun 24th, 2012

I'm assuming you've read the story if you're reading this. If you haven't go away and read it. It's just 1608 words so it won't take long.

The story started with the title, actually. Suddenly late at night the phrase popped in my head. I had to make a story where the action is a logical conclusion of proceeding events. It had to be done.

Before I could go to bed and realize this was a terrible idea I wrote the first paragraph.

So I started with the premise that Twilight is really bored. Ennui isn't just boredom, it's a weariness with society in general. It's much more systematic than simple boredom. Representing this with a psudeo-swear jar (put a dollar in each time you say a bad word. It's a great way to break the habit) is simply to make it funny. I held off referring to it too much after the first scene as I feared I had overused it already.

The swearing is also just to be comedic. I could cut it and not lose much, though I'd have to rework the ending. Note that besides Celestia's "shit" at the end, no one but Twilight swears. I tried to keep the tone of Pinkie and Rainbow's lines as close to the show as I could just to contrast with this. Spike I had to fudge a bit to get him to foil Twilight's ethical musings properly. I guess could always explain it as him living with Twilight means he's picked up on some complicated vernacular.

What it means to open a door with Spike is left to reader's the imagination. It certainly is a novel way to open a door.

I was worried I was basically ripping off Lesson Zero's plot (Twilight worries about a problem so much she does an awful thing to resolve it) so I tried to deviate how I could. Thus, Pinkie Pie tries to help. Poor girl doesn't realize Twilight is an idiot who is overrating novelty.

A Vetala is a Hindu demon that possesses corpses to take tangible form and cause insanity and miscarriages. Not every mythological reference has to be Greco-Roman. The part that baffles even me is that apparently one has showed up before.

A thing I think I like to do too much is withdraw information about the setting of a scene until part-way in it, for comedic effect. I do it three times, at the start, here, and in the ending. The middle one is the weakest but dammit I have to I can't help it.

Rainbow Dash is there to hurry things along. Yes, a 1608 word fanfic needs hurrying. The whole thing is so short because I assume you, the reader, if you're on Fimfiction, are aware of the setting and characters of MLP:FiM. I hope the words "Twilight Sparkle" are evocative of the bookworm unicorn, and "Sugarcube Corner" brings to mind the bakery, so I don't really need to describe either. I think years of playing RPGs have left me oversensitive to pacing, and as a result I try to cut unneeded description to make it flow faster. It helps that that sets up the gag I described in the previous paragraph.

Alright that's chapter 1. Probably matches it in length even.

The fanfic takes place in one day. My original plan is that Twilight started raging about ennui only yesterday (and had already worn it out) but I couldn't include this revelation elegantly. The chronology is loose anyway, given it starts vaguely in the afternoon.

This is an oversimplification of the negatives of deontology, that it is easy to justify doing bad things if good things follow. A lot of villains are like this, believing that making a few heads roll now paves the way for a greater peace. Here, it's Twilight using it to be completely selfish. She can't see the problems with her own reasoning because, though the logic is sound, the premise is horrible.

And we get to the premise. You could substitute pretty much any minor evil here.

But then it wouldn't be Twilight Sparkle Punches a Baby. It's just so cartoonishly wrong I couldn't accept anything else.

I rewrote the synapses and neurons bit a few times to make it sound better. I hope it worked. Ephemeral is a fun word. The use of foal here is to prevent too much repetition of baby. The story isn't called Twilight Sparkle Punches a Foal because punches a baby is a far, far, far funnier phrase. I was informed horses can't really punch. I don't care. It wouldn't be as funny if weren't punch.

Ripping the door off its hinges is another novel way of opening a door. I ironically couldn't use bucking it open as that was in Lesson Zero and therefore wouldn't be new. The shackles of canon.

I used the name Fuzzy Peach in some jokes with friends about silly OC names. I think one of 'em was talking about a half-dragon pony with the name Soulblade. I joked his parents were the dragon Chaossword and the pony... Fuzzy Peach. This isn't actually part of the story but I really liked the name Fuzzy Peach for a pony. Peach Cobbler is just another peach thing that also sounds like a pony name.

Of course, karma means Twilight doesn't get away with her heinous act. I added Spike's sniffling later to make the sneeze not come out of nowhere. I had to restrain myself from using italics to emphasize words at other points just to make the thock more unique. This includes the final scene. I wanted to bold that "other" so bad but I knew it would hamper the thock.

If it makes anyone feel any better, Peach Cobbler wasn't hurt very bad. Who wouldn't be upset by being woken up by a punch to the face?

Winking is the G1 name for unicorn teleporting. I don't recall how I learned this.

The original plan didn't have much past the babypunching. Including Princess Celestia just seemed like the most reasonable ending as nearly every episode ends with a letter to her. Twilight never quite gets the real lesson: that novelty is not a perquisite of entertainment and blah blah blah. Read Celestia's last few lines in that really giddy, flippant voice she has at the end of It's About Time, like "Happy Tuesday!" It's how I wrote them.

And the conclusion just felt right, you know? Bookending it with putting bits in jars.

Some meta stuff: The tags are meant to be read as one. It's a dark comedy. The premise and conclusion aren't very happy, but it's full of puns and swearing. The teen rating is purely because of the swearing. The cover image is fairly fitting, I think. I never expected this to be so damn popular but I guess the title was strange enough to get me some attention.

I feel kinda proud it got so far despite containing no humans, original characters, or sex, despite having more uses of the word "fuck" than most actual clopfics (at one. The most common swear is "shit" actually).

And I'm glad people are commenting on it a lot, even if most are just expressing confusion. I like it when art generates conversation. It's part of why I make things.

So yeah, I really like detailing my creative process.

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